HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2011-05-12, Page 1CitizenTh
e
$1.25 GST included Serving the communities of Blyth and Brussels and northern Huron County Thursday, May 12, 2011
Volume 27 No. 19
DREAM TRIP - Pg. 6Blyth’s Mikayla Ansleysees dreams come true SPORTS - Pg. 9 Huron County Fastballstarts season in BlythAPPEAL- Pg. 3Rick Elliott’s OMB appeal is deniedPublications Mail Agreement No. 40050141 Return Undeliverable Items to North Huron Publishing Company Inc., P.O. Box 152, BRUSSELS, ON N0G 1H0INSIDE THIS WEEK:
Expert assures council wind turbines are safe
Budget passes
in Central Huron
A check under the hood
Three-year-old Andrew Groothuis gave this toy a good once-over, strongly considering its
quality before committing to a purchase at last week’s village-wide yard sale in Auburn. One
of the biggest events of the year in Auburn, the weather was perfect for a yard sale (or a few
dozen) while the Auburn Lions cooked breakfast and several other groups raised funds as
well. (Vicky Bremner photo)
While there may be annoyance
associated with wind turbines, says
Chatham-Kent Medical Officer of
Health Dr. David Colby, there are no
adverse health effects directly
associated with them.
Colby spoke to Huron County
Council at its May 4 meeting and
brought with him a message that has
been echoed by several medical
studies and even Canadian
environmentalist David Suzuki:
wind turbines are not making people
sick.
This message was a hard one for
several councillors to swallow, as
many of them have been hearing
from concerned groups of citizens
who speak to the contrary for several
years now.
Colby said that the initial wave of
skepticism with wind turbines came
from a “flawed” book by Dr. Nina
Pierpont entitled Wind Turbine
Syndrome.
Colby said the book was written
using “uncontrolled and unverified
reports,” featured “no medical
examinations and no testing” and
was written with “the most extreme
selection bias” he had ever seen.
Colby listed the alleged symptoms
of Wind Turbine Syndrome, which
include irritability, headaches and a
lack of sleep, to name a few, and said
that he “has this” but that it wasn’t
due to listening to wind turbines.
Colby said that there were many
problems with how wind turbines
were alleged to affect people
physically. In terms of sound, he
commented that the level of sound
produced by a wind turbine is
nowhere close enough to cause any
physical damage and that another
concern, vibration moving in
through someone’s mouth and
vibrating their diaphragm “defies
the laws of physics”.
“This was an inappropriate use of
science,” Colby stated of the book.
In conclusion, Colby stated that
there was no evidence linking wind
turbines to harmful health effects.
Colby, who was a member of an
expert panel on wind turbines in
2009, said that there have since been
eight different independent studies
that have backed up his findings.
Colby likened the “effects” that
wind turbines are having to the
mental effect that a placebo can have
on someone.
He said that as a doctor, he would
never think someone who says
they’re sick is lying to him.
Colby said that a combination of
visual annoyance (awareness that a
wind turbine is there) and a lack of
financial compensation could be
creating these symptoms, he said, to
the point that they are an actual
hallucination.
Colby said that he doesn’t believe
people are making these symptoms
up, but that they have no direct link
to wind turbines.
“If you tell someone pervasively
enough that they should feel sick,”
he said. “They’ll feel sick.”
Colby added that while it may
seem like he is advocating wind
turbines, he is just providing medical
evidence and that the lack of a
correlation between turbines and
harmful health effects isn’t his
opinion, it’s a medical fact.
He said that he isn’t an advocate
for turbines, in fact, he said, he
doesn’t particularly like the look of
wind turbines in the countryside, but
that the evidence points towards no
Howson & Howson Limited’s
Elevator and Feed Mill has been
busy lately with a new order bound
for Korea.
Bruce Howson explained that the
company’s marketer found a new
venue for their soybeans.
“Our marketer found a new home
for the beans,” he said. “We’ll be
shipping more than 2,400 metric
tons of beans to Korea.”
Howson stated that the market is a
big one, and is predominantly
serviced by American and Chinese
bean handlers, but that it’s good for
them to get their foot in the door.
“This is a new market, and it’s
pretty big,” he said. “We’ll be trying
to compete with Chinese and
American beans.
“We won’t know how this
develops as a market until we get
down the road a bit, but it’s a good
start,” he said.
While Canadian producers do
need to meet higher standards for
agricultural produce than some other
exporting countries, Howson said
that won’t hurt them in the long run.
“Our standards are higher, but the
quality of our beans is a lot higher as
well,” he said.
Howson stated that the beans will
be used for soy milk and tofu, two
high demand products in Korea.
The beans being sent over are
from storage, so they are locally
produced.
Inspectors from Korea became a
common sight at the facility to look
over the product, but their numbers
have dwindled as of late according
to Howson.
“We started with four inspectors
here from Korea,” he said. “But now
there’s usually two here.”
A total of 144 containers at 18
metric tons each will have been
shipped to Korea by the end of the
week.
International shipping isn’t new
work for Howson & Howson as they
have shipped to Japan, China and
Malaysia.
After numerous discussions and a
deferral last month, Central Huron’s
budget passed on Monday night with
a 3.95 per cent increase.
While the Central Huron aspect of
the budget is up nearly four per cent,
the overall tax picture for Central
Huron residents this year is a good
one, with an overall decrease of 0.12
per cent, meaning that the average
tax bill will go down $1.70 for the
year. After factoring in the education
tax rates and the Huron County tax
levy, the overall rate was reached.
Reeve Jim Ginn admitted that
there was some urgency in having to
pass the budget and that councillors
had their “backs against the wall”
with deadlines closing in.
Director of Finance Terri Taylor
said that the Huron County finance
department needed Central Huron’s
rates soon, so the budget needed to
be passed.
The budget was held up for
months over the “donation”
requested by the Regional Equine
and Agricultural Centre of Huron
(REACH) which totalled over
$500,000.
After a meeting between council
and REACH representatives, a
compromise was reached, which
included an advance from the
municipality to REACH in the
amount of $116,735.84.
When factoring in a reconciliation
from REACH in the amount of
$74,767.48 and a further $76,000
(for the organization’s lease against
the $24,000 management fee
payment), the net donation request
totalled $350,207.52. Broken down
into 12 parts, this donation works
out to a monthly payment of
$29,183.96. So the amount that has
already been forwarded to REACH
accounts for the four months under
the requested donation amount.
The remaining funds have now
been moved from the Cultural and
Recreational Organizations line of
the budget to the tax stabilization
reserve, which is a general reserve
that council may “use as it wishes”
according to CAO Kevin McLlwain,
and further donations to REACH can
be determined at a later date. The
money, however, cannot be spent
without a motion from council.
For many councillors who were on
the fence about the REACH
donation issue, this was a reasonable
compromise that they said they
would vote in favour of under the
guise of expediency and finally
passing the budget.
Several councillors hoped that
terminating further donations to
REACH wasn’t a consideration and
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
By Denny Scott
The Citizen
Continued on page 20
Local beans headed for Korea
By Shawn Loughlin
The Citizen
Continued on page 19